January 13, 2016

Optimism and Obama

In the commercial that President Obama released prior to his final State of the Union address, Obama said he would tell Congress how “optimistic” he is about America’s future. Good. Politicians and the media are at their most dangerous when they try to scare us, telling us disaster is on the way unless we follow, and pay for, their latest schemes to “protect” us.

In the commercial that President Obama released prior to his final State of the Union address, Obama said he would tell Congress how “optimistic” he is about America’s future.

Good. Politicians and the media are at their most dangerous when they try to scare us, telling us disaster is on the way unless we follow, and pay for, their latest schemes to “protect” us.

I’m cautiously optimistic about the future, too, if only because our last 200 years have shown that despite politicians’ attacks on open markets and individual freedom, people keep getting richer and living longer.

When Obama talks about the America we are creating together, it would be more honest if he congratulated Americans for all the progress we make despite government fighting us at every turn — with taxes and regulations and booming debt that lowers the value of each dollar.

Of course, presidents want to be remembered positively, and Obama’s cheerleaders are eager to put a happy spin on things in his final year in office.

Michael Grunwald at Politico decided to help with a piece about Obama’s policy accomplishments, describing America as “the nation he built.” Obama once told us that if you have a business, “you didn’t build that,” so I guess now we know who does the building.

Grunwald praises Obamacare for expanding the number of Americans with health insurance and points out that, at the same time, the administration also sneaked through a government takeover of student loan debt. John Boehner was correct to complain that “the president will sign not one, but two job-killing government takeovers.”

But Grunwald says that sticking taxpayers with billions of dollars of student debt was part of the “relentless government activism” needed to give America “a profound course correction” that also changed “the way we produce and consume energy, the way doctors and hospitals treat us, the academic standards in our schools and the long-term fiscal trajectory of the nation.”

All that is true, if by changing how we consume energy he means shutting down pipelines while ignoring private industry’s wonderful fracking revolution.

If by changing the way doctors treat us he means locking still more people into bureaucracies instead of letting a true health market flourish.

If academic standards mean imposing weird testing regimens and teaching methods like Common Core.

And if “long-term fiscal trajectory” means nearly doubling our federal debt, now almost $19 trillion, and doing nothing to slow America’s coming entitlements bankruptcy.

Leftists can credit Obama with policy successes because Obama often outmaneuvered Republicans and got bills he wanted. Unfortunately, the left rarely looks closely at whether those bills really made Americans better off.

Grunwald says Obama’s $800 billion stimulus package crammed in a whole administration’s worth of programs in one go — but Grunwald adds only in passing that economists don’t agree on whether the stimulus accomplished anything good.

That’s the whole problem. Politicians unleash programs — the more complicated the better — and then take credit later for anything good that happens, blaming the bad things on their political opponents.

It usually takes years to figure out what the programs’ real impacts were, if we ever do. People still argue — 80 years later — about whether the New Deal prolonged or helped end the Great Depression.

We don’t know if the country is better or worse off because of “relentless government activism.” We libertarians argue that government helps us by keeping the peace and providing a level playing field but that beyond that, most government intervention does harm. That’s why we’re better off if individuals can pick and choose which things work for us.

In a real marketplace, individuals go to the schools we choose, buy health care we want and pay our own debts.

I’m optimistic about America, too — but not because we “come together” and function as a single union. I’m optimistic because in most areas of life, we’re still free to make our own decisions.

COPYRIGHT 2015 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.